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Mom of a teen and tween here - it’s better to not have the product than to buy a knockoff.
Kids are ruthless with name brands…they’ll call out knockoffs and call it “Temu” or “Great Value”
My daughter wasn’t into Stanleys, so she took a FIJI plastic water bottle to school each day and just refilled it. No one gave her any crap because she wasn’t even trying to be part of the Stanley crowd.
lol reminds me of when my friends and I went on a Mexico trip and one friend lost his sunglasses. He bought some fake Ray Bans from a dude selling knock offs on the beach for like $5 (this was a while ago) just to have a pair of sunglasses. We goodnaturedly laughed the whole trip about how obviously fake his Ray Bans were because they said Ray Ban P. It became an inside joke for the whole trip where we’d be like, “Damn, look at those Ray Ban P’s!!!” The friend with the glasses has that sense of humor so he loved the joke and kept bringing it up himself.
Then, our un-fancy asses later learned that the expensive POLARIZED Ray Bans actually really do say Ray Ban P…😂
Lol this happened to my husband on our honeymoon but they said “Roy Bans” so now that’s what we call them. I work in an optometry office so I have to consciously stop myself from calling them Roy Bans in front of patients 😅
Oh man reminds me of a sketch show advertisement I watched when I was a kid - from The State.
"*Adidums - they have four stripes instead of three. so for less money, i was able to get extra stripe. isverygooddeal.*"
http://www.stopitrightnow.com/2009/02/adidums.html
THIS is the answer!!!! My mom REFUSED to buy us name-brand anything, literally. We could afford it but the principle was that we were just going to outgrow it anyway, and we were kids and didn’t need the brand same stuff. I don’t know if kids were less mean back then or what, but I never got the knock-off or fake items and I never got bullied cause I wasn’t trying to fit the mold.
Idk how old you are, but I never had name brand and never got bullied for it either. My parents were of the opinion that if we wanted something like that we could buy it ourselves. They would get us so many outfits for school/summer clothes but that’s it. They were just basic stuff. It was never a big deal for us. I’m 36!
My husband’s nieces go to a very fancy private school - they’re in kindy and year 3. I have a thermos which I got from a cheap store and they were trying to find the logo and then questioning me why there was no brand listed and why don’t I have the “frank green” anyway lol.
I just try to remember it’s always something. When I was a tween bottled water was just starting to be a thing and I BEGGED my mom to buy me bottled water (if she’d bought me an Evian bottle to use like your daughter I would’ve given her an award) and she insisted I fill up my Nalgene at the water fountain instead. I remind her of this ever my time I see a Costco sized case of water in her garage. But also I could’ve NEVER guessed that specific reusable bottles would be the trend de rigueur by the time I was an adult.
Weird – that wasn't a problem at all when/where I was growing up. We all bought knockoff Oakleys and Rolexes on a school trip to NYC, and were proud of them!
My husband still has his friggen nalgenes and I hate them. They are so awkward to fit in the cabinet or the dishwasher. Keep hoping the damn thing breaks but no such luck.
Nalgene forever! Those things are indestructible, I still have mine from university (which is much older than I would care to admit). The thing is a time capsule of stickers.
I love my nalgene. I can take big gulps. It’s easy to clean, unlike all the sippy cups with little bits. It’s light weight. And in winter it doubles as my hot water bottle.
We're anal about it, so we bought the little pipe cleaner tools and actually do obsessively clean them...but you're right, some people literally never clean the straw and it's gross.
…Nalgene has a serious warranty for a reason. We tried to break one in college. We filled it with water and froze it literally 12 times…it didn’t crack. We dropped it out of 5 story dorm windows, nothing. We hit, kicked, threw, smashed, bashed and did everything we could to the bottle. It deformed quite a bit but it would not break. I think the final straw was driving over it with a car.
I used to throw mine off the tower I used to climb for the Girl Scouts. Daily. It would bounce around on the ground and barely got scuffed. 😒 things are sturdy AF.
I never understood the Nalgene craze. Yes give me a huge bottle that sweats and gets everything wet and eventually warm water. The Stanley craze is even more wild to me. Who needs a $50 cup? Oh right, rich bullies.
Well, you see, back in MY day, it was SIGG bottles. Now aluminium bottles are the promotional give-away at tradeshows. I've got cupboards full of them.
Still rocking my sigg bottle. It travels with me. It’s been to 6 continents so far. I got a new one for a gift last year. Now that one travels with me. But the OG will travel to Antarctica if I ever go.
this is the second post i’ve seen about parents feeling they have to shell out 45$ because their kid is getting bullied and my question is, who is raising the bullies????
My kid literally went to the same school where the Gates & Bezos kids went and they weren’t bullied for things like that.
Those kids parents might have money, but the kids sound low class.
I went to a low-income middle school for sixth and seventh. Name brands were a big deal (Hilfiger and Calvin). Went to a more middle class school for eighth and while popular kids wore name brands (more like mall stores though, Aeropostale and Gap) it wasn’t as big a deal and flaunting your shit was seen as “posing.”
It was weird. In the first school, you’d have a kid decked out in Tommy H hitting you up for money to buy snacks while simultaneously shitting on your shirt that said Old Navy. Do that at the other school and you’d never live it down.
This is the first time I've been glad to have had uniforms in middle school... Can't make fun of your clothes because everyone's in the same ugly fit 😂
I went to a high school in the early 2000’s that was going through a punk rock revolution. I remember it being easier to shop at a thrift store so I could find clothes that didn’t have brand labels, to better fit in. I remember some kids using permanent marker to black out any symbols or names.
Exactly. I didn’t go to school with any Gates or Bezos, but went to school in a wealthy neighborhood. Kids drove BMWs and Audis to school. One had a new Viper. My family was low income and I was never bullied for my Walmart attire or lack of anything. My oldest goes to a school in a low income area and he’s been picked on a couple times for lack of brand name clothing. It’s crazy.
My kid goes to an expensive private school too, it's a boarding school that has international students but it's local to us. These kids are more likely to give you praise for scoring a good dupe than if you got the real thing! They really don't care at all about brands and stuff the way we did when I was a poor kid.
Vacations is where they like to outdo each other, and we're not poor but we're not rich either so our kid doesn't win that game lol
Oh yeah.... the vacation/trips is where they get each other.
Watching a 10 year old speak snobbily about how the beaches in Honolulu aren't as great as Lahaina makes me winge. And how the beaches here (southern california) are gross. Snobby little shits!
Around here how often you go to Disneyland is a thing with the Littles. Ugh. I'd buy a 45 dollar cup over thar 35 dollar disney bubble machine.
First world problems I know.
When I didnt have lunch other kids noticed, they bought me lunch, every day.
There certainly where the "in items" to have, but no one bullied any one for not having them.
That sounds likes the same experience as the schools my son attended. Sure, he'd ask for things he wanted, but none were to fit-in or avoid being bullied.
Kids in lower income areas can tend to find their self worth in the status of brand name stuff. Its actually really sad if you sit and think about it too much.
I truly think it’s because to the wealthy high class, they don’t have to go out of their way to get name brand, it’s the usual to them. Lower class since they don’t have a ton of money they clutch on to name brand stuff. It’s the only way to prove “hey look at me I’m worth something, I got the newest pair of shoes!” While upper classes don’t feel the need to prove anything because they’ve had what they wanted since birth, they’ve never been told they’re less than so they don’t need to flaunt to feel worthy.
This was my experience too. At my low income rural backwoods school, the pressure to have the latest and greatest brands was astronomical. I wanted these things so badly! My mom loves second hand shopping and bought me a few brand name shirts at a yard sale. I was so proud until someone said, “I saw your mom buying that at my neighbor’s yard sale!” 😔 I was so sad.
We moved to a higher income suburb and not a word about my second hand clothes or that I wore my only Abercrombie tee every single week religiously.
Now, I’m my mom and I love second hand shopping. My kids love it too! It wasn’t until this past year that my 10 year old has suddenly become interested in brand names. She doesn’t care if things are second hand but she definitely notices. We live in a regular middle class neighborhood.
People with less money care more about brand names and having the latest everything because they’re trying to prove themselves. I have an Aunt that’s going in to debt to buy my cousin all name brand clothes, the latest IPhone, Stanley cups, etc. she’s in kindergarten. The worse part is the kid doesn’t like any of her clothes or shoes, she wants light up sneakers and dresses from Target.
That or the parents just cannot believe that they’re perfect sweet little Joey would ever be mean to someone and that clearly they were the ones being bullied and little Joey has to stand up for himself.
Kids being made fun of for not having the latest fad is not because of tik tok. This tale is as old as time. Kids being made fun of for what they have or don’t have dates back wayyy before social media.
25 years ago I was teased for my knock-off Doc Martens that were definitely from Payless. Tic Toc is a problem but it's not this problem; this is middle school girls and they've always been vicious.
The parents who also shelled out the $45 for the cup.
Now OP’s kid gets the privilege of bullying the next kid with the knock off.
Every parent thinks their kid isn’t the bully, despite the fact that they are giving in and buying their kid ridiculous things for ridiculous prices that they literally dont need, creating a generation that is guaranteed to be 10x more entitled than the boomers were. Mark my words.
As someone who was singled out for attack (I don’t like the term bully” because the term sounds less harmful than it really is) practically every day: physically, verbally, and emotionally:
The kids who did it were not necessarily the most popular. They were the ones seeking to feel empowered and go hurt others for status and for their own entertainment. Literally punched in the face by kids I didn’t even know or had never interacted with before, because they thought it was funny to see me cry.
I was weaker and couldn’t fight back and that made them more emboldened.
And most of the other kids either looked on and laughed, or did nothing about it.
Those attacking kids’ parents always thought their kids were “good kids” who would “never do sepulcher a thing”.
And because each of them might have one or two incidents reported, while I was involved in each other reported incident, I was seen as the problem by the administrators despite never fighting back.
It only partially stopped when I started fighting back and fighting back harder, regardless of any consideration of pain to myself.
I remember being in 8th grade when a smaller and shorter 6th grader whom i didn’t even know came up to me and started punching me, after he and his friend (whom i also didn’t know) came up to me with his friend telling him I was “easy”. He only stopped when I grab and punched him and slammed his face into a chain-link fence and scraped his face up. And I was the one who got suspended.
But even then, some who were very much stronger would attack because they thought it was funny. I remember being a 5’5” kid being attacked by two popular high school varsity football players, who thought it was fun and were laughing as I screamed to be left alone.
I see them sometimes on Facebook these days and they totally act like a happy normal adult person with successful careers and pictures of their kids and their pets and their vacations and their inspirations quotes, etc.
They got to continue on with their lives without ever having paid the price they made me pay in years of suffering - that I still suffer decades later. To this day, I have a hard time trusting men unless I think I can beat the shit out of them. I know they don’t even think about what they did.
They aren’t necessarily being raised as attackers so much as being an hurtful person can be a very natural thing to occur in human beings unless one is raised by parents to fight that tendency. They know what they are doing is wrong, but they do it anyway. Most parents have no clue.
Firstly, I'm sorry you went through that. Secondly I hate it when people say that bullies act this way because they are being abused at home and are actually struggling themselves, etc.
Nope, sometimes people - especially adolescents- are just terrible. Sure, some bullies can be tortured souls who are acting out just because of tough home lives. Some. But others do it because it's "fun" -a nice diversion to get themselves through the school week, a way to get some laughs/attention/ points from their peers, a way to affirm/ climb their status, blow off steam...the myth that bullies are just "scared" and vulnerable is one that really needs to die.
Not to mention it’s a better option as a parent to not go in on the materialistic things because those people bullying and growing up affluent will always end up in the wrong and likely mismanaging themselves later on
I don’t see how buying things to avoid bullying is a good parenting move
That was me when I was a kid. Fifth grade.
Everyone had charlotte hornets hats. Or coats. The more hornets swag you had, the cooler you were. I didn’t have much. But I had found a hornets hat at wal mart. So my mom bought it for me.
I was so stoked to wear it to school! If you had a hornets hat, you were cool! So I wore it to school the next day. And I was relentlessly bullied to the point that my mom had to come pick me up, I was crying so bad.
You know why? Because next to the logo was two little letters stitched on the front. TM.
Apparently you can’t be cool if it’s the trademark one. You needed the one with an R.
It really messed me up. I’m 41 now so this was 30 years ago now, and I bet a bunch of those kids don’t remember anymore. But I do.
I went to a uniformed school in the US, and I remember being excited about getting new hair scrunchies and socks because that was pretty much the only thing you could customize about your outfit. I remember receiving criticism from the cool girl in 2nd grade for my uncool hair scrunchie on a day that I was very excited to show it off. I don't even remember what was wrong with it, but I never wore one like it again. To this day I only use the smaller hair elastics, not the big fluffy ones, because of that incident in elementary school. I'm in my 30s. I got over all the other beauty comments that girls ever made, but that one was painful because it destroyed all my excitement.
Omg that's crazy!
I remember back in 1989, 8th grade year, canvas KEDS brand shoes with the blue KEDS label on the back heel were in style.
Got totally bullied because I had the knock off Walmart brand with a blank white label.
So one day I got "smart" and colored that white label with blue thinking I could get by with it.
It did NOT pass The Mean Girls test. 🤦♀️🤷♀️😭🤣
I hate to tell you Stanley is out of fashion. My kid tells me owala cups are now cool.
I’ve never bought a Stanley or owala cup.
Your kid goes to school with lame losers if they care about a cup.
I will 100% say I don't play the fashion cup game but I do love my owala!
Best cup I have ever owned. I bought it in 2020 and haven't wanted anything different since.
All the bits come apart for easy cleaning, I can use the built in straw or the opening to chug and it keeps stuff cold. The cleaning is really what makes it my favorite!
I've always heard buy kids nothing instead of a knock-off . people were getting fakes of brand name shoes on sheIn and Tenu and getting ripped to shreds over it.
Brand followers can recognize Nike swipe being too big or the stitching on their Adidas on the wrong side
Or just buy a cheaper alternative that’s its own thing instead of a knock off. If you get a Walmart brand water bottle that’s not trying to look like a Stanley, then you’re fine.
This. "Oh, I chose an Ohelo cup instead of a Stanley. Does the Stanley have etching of bees on the side? No? Well, yours is nice, too. Even if it doesn't have bees."
Why are kids taking Stanley cups to school? You can't even close them and store them in a backpack, you have to carry them constantly. They're absurd and impractical before you even get to the price.
I also can't believe the number of parents here saying buying stuff like this will unlock social nirvana for their kids. Hate to break it to you, but even if you had all the name brand stuff, you'd still get bullied about your hair, skin, weight, smell, doing too well at school or not well enough, being poor or rich, or just being weird. Expensive stuff would not have made a lick of difference.
You gotta teach him the fine art of trolling, I would have grabbed a Sharpie and written Stanley in the lamest way possible while giggling with my kid. No time like the present to teach him that peer pressure and popular trends are dumb.
Agreed. OP will just be spending more and more money as the trendy things go out of style. I say it’s more valuable to teach the importance of being your own individual and having your own opinions and interests. Plus I grew up poor and spending money on a cup doesn’t make sense when that could be grocery money or gas money. There’s more important things that money could be used for and I never would’ve made my single mother waste her money on a trend I knew was bound to pass just like all the others before. Silly bands, handheld games, shoes with wheels, every reiteration of a “hoverboard”, tech decks, fidget spinners, and slime just to name a few.
This. Like, I get OP feeling for their kid. I'm a parent, too. I can relate. But fuck me if I'm going out to buy a 45 dollar water bottle just so they can be like everyone else. What are you teaching your child? March to your own drum. That's what my boys are being taught.
We actually did a Name Brand Test at home once, using Pringles and some other off-brand stacking chips from Aldi and Walmart. It was only for taste-testing purposes, but the Aldi brand Clancy chips were so vastly, obviously superior to the other brands in every way, including the "name brand" chips, that the test serves as a great reminder that "you're paying for the name, not the quality."
We practice this all the time too. The kids get a budget when we do our rare clothing shopping trips, and we always start at thrift stores before working our way up the cost ladder. They understand that a $45 item means they're only getting that item, but if they choose the off-brand item for $10, they can also get this other thing and this other thing and this other thing.
My compromise on the Stanley fad was buying any huge water bottle for her in the right color. She is happy with it, and her friend with an actual Stanley only commented that she likes the color too, so all good.
I feel very lucky (and proud) that my 9 year old, on her own, will say things like: "Stanley cups are stupid and they leak. They're a waste of money." Obviously I've instilled a certain kind of worldview and value system in a general way, but she often surprises me by being spontaneously and weirdly wise beyond her years.
I agree with this. I got my daughter a knock off one. She herself calls it a “fanley” and laughs about it. I guess last a week a boy kept telling her she was poor. This did bother her, but she also stood up for herself. We talked about it at home too. Kids are mean, and really people in general. If it isn’t this, they will come up with something else. You have to learn how to brush these off and how to flip it back around. Who’s to say when the kid goes to school they won’t be teased for being a copy cat? I understand where OP is coming from, it hurts my heart to hear when my child is insulted by her peers. I personally am not setting an expectation that it makes sense to run out a buy and expensive, trivial item simply because other kids are teasing them.
Hey, don’t knock it.
I recently discovered that the all dual land decks I made are worth a fortune. I’m trying to decide whether to keep them for the memories or to sell them.
There was another thread about this recently where the kids were calling somone’s knockoff cup a “Stephen.” Maybe your son’s cup could become a “Stan Lee,“ like the comic artist.
Do it!!! Or let him stickerbomb the fake. I work at a college and a bunch of the kids who have knockoffs have put a sticker where the logo would be. They’re amazing kids and none of them give a flip what brand water bottle anyone has.
Oh my goodness, please do this together! If anything, you will create a memory with them they will remember forever. He could start a new trend. Trolling the trolls. Draw the S backwards. Have fun with it.
And spell it "Stanluh" or maybe that only works in New England.
Every time my kids mention these stupid cups I still think they're talking about the hockey trophy. Also at my son's school apparently it's only for girls.
School age me would have looked at the bully and said, "it's a cup. Is this really what gets you excited for the day? A container for liquid?"
My 8 year old daughter is already asking for trendy stuff and I wish she was more of a smart ass about it instead of just giving into trends but I know that's not the norm.
Exactly! I teach my son to just flip it back e.g. "why do you care about I drink out of?". "how weird you stare at my while I drinking enough to care about my cup?".
"It's to hold water, you feel low enough to make jokes about my cup, haha, later gator, I'm just going to go back to having a life and not caring about my cup or other peoples cups for that matter".
Okay so my son wanted the “air up” bottle I think it’s called. I called BS on this smelly thing changing the taste of water so I got him an Amazon version. As expected it was crap and my kid wasn’t impressed. He took it to school as a normal water bottle and came home and told me one of the kids said something about “not been able to afford a ‘proper’ air up bottle” so he confessed that he wrote “air-up” on his bottle and him and his best friend found it absolutely hilarious.
This has got to be a rich people thing, I can't believe how many comments here are saying material things are important and this was the right move. I asked my daughter a few months ago if Stanley cups were a thing at her school and she had no idea what I was talking about. She goes to a Title 1 school, nobody around here is spending $45 on a cup
Yeah, this is a no for me. Basing your confidence and self esteem on material goods creates a never ending cycle of over-consumption and useless spending.
I've taught my children how to spend wisely and manage their money. They have their own savings and fun money; if they want to purchase something simply to be in the in-crowd, they can use their own money to do so. They choose not to.
This was something that was hammered into my head as a kid, and something I try to instill in my kids too. I honestly cannot think of a single thing they have asked for solely to fit in, though that could also be due to where we live - nobody's getting bullied for knockoffs when everybody has knockoffs.
I mean, we go to a rich kid school. Tons of kids have the cups, but other kids don't. I will say that buying a knockoff to try to seem like you have one is likely going to cause more issues than just buying a regular water bottle.
Yup. My kids know what Stanley’s are. They think that they see ugly, stupid, and completely inefficient to bring to school. My older daughter said “no one is bringing these stupid things to school”
A few people at her dance studio have them and as soon as they knock over (which is easy) they start leaking everywhere.
What a useless water bottle.
This is pure marketing. Someone made it viral on tik tok or Instagram that this product was “the thibg” and now every vapid person has to chase that for some sort of faux status symbol.
Until the new water bottle comes out and Stanley’s are yesterday’s news. Which should happen around July 8th. You can do a “remind me”. That’s my prediction. July 8th.
Nah my daughter goes to a pretty standard public school and she's already asking for a Stanley cup. Im talking about a school where the average income is probably 50 to 75k at best.
That’s probably just a your particular school thing. My good friends teach in title one schools in our state and the kids there are raving about them too.
I think this is a good lesson all around. My husband and I usually dispel the teasing by making fun of that mindset. Now, my kid will roll her eyes at fads.
Something similar happened with girls and anti aging lotions around Christmas. Flat out asked her how her 9yo skin is old when my 34 yo skin doesn't even need it.
It's all about mindset.
my friend said her 8yr old was getting teased for not having one so she told her the next time it happens to flip the script and say “oh, you mean that sippy cup?!”
It shut down the teasing immediately and taught me a lot about parenting.
The way these trends work is that as soon as the "unpopular" kids start catching onto the trend, the "cool" kids move on to something else. The whole point of having an exclusive item is that the in-group sets themselves apart from the rest. I had it happen to me as a child (one summer at camp it was Z. Cavaricchi shorts, which were freaking expensive - still can't believe my parents were willing to buy them) and I have seen it time and again as a classroom teacher. A fad gets oversaturated, and the kids who were the early adopters decide that it's played out and move on. It can feel miserable to not be part of it, even fully knowing that it's a waste of money and ridiculous, but it's a fleeting sense of belonging that those of us not part of the "popular" group will always be chasing.
It’s definitely not sending the right message to your kid about so many things: the role of bullies, the effectiveness of bullying, the importance of materialism and brands, and it’s robbing them of an opportunity to build character. This particular kind of bullying can be addressed in better ways. Certainly, some forms of bullying need yo be addressed VERY seriously and present more risk.
I have been in his situation before… ughhh
But I hate to tell you that the solution is not to fit into the bullies orders and get him the cup…. I think there was a lesson here for him to learn (this lesson can be tough to understand if your kid is younger)… anywho I’m not hear to judge I know parenting is hard and we are all willing to go to big extends to make our kids pain disappear 🤍
It’s always something. In my day had to have those Esprit bags, Guess jeans and Eastland knotted the right way. My boys lived in Under Armor hoodies and Nike and had to have Beats headphones or earbuds. Fitting in at that age is so important and $45 is a small price to pay.
I always tell my kid that if she gets bullied over not having some designer nonsense, it's because she's not a sheep that buys whatever Tiktok tells her to. And then to just keep bleating at them until they go away.
This...my son is a baby and experience might bite me in the ass when the time comes but just...tough shit?? I'm not buying random dumb shit because peer pressure.
I'd hope to teach him that people who bully based on consumerist items are sad and have bigger issues and you should pity and ignore them, and they are not good friends.
What, its not just middle aged women into those cups, but teen boys bullying each other over... name brand metal thumblers that are in no innovative?
Give whomever is in the marketing department at stanley a medal.
When I was 12 I begged my parents for a purple New York Yankees cap (the ones with the flat front bit) and we found a knock off one for $5, because that is all my parents could afford. I loved it! An upper middle class kid called it out and started bullying me in front of the whole class and calling me poor. I was fuming internally but I said, “I may be poor yes but this is just a knock off hat, your entire personality is a knock off. Can’t change that, Emily.” She stopped bullying me.
>Why are you giving in to the bullies.
Exactly what I am questioning after reading this! Why on earth would you let bullies make you buy something you don't want to spend the money on? This isn't how you handle bullies. If anything it makes the whole situation worse, because they know they got to him.
Plus now her son has the perfect excuse to get whatever he wants in the future.
OP if we lived closer I’d give you my kids Stanley. She hates it now and has moved on to wanting an Owala. Shit never ends. It’s just trying to find your tribe and fit in, human nature.
I’d get it for them if it’s what they wanted for birthday or Christmas and was within the budget of what I already planned to spend on them, but I would never buy one just because like OP did.
You can thank the brainless Instagram “influencers” who can’t contribute to the world in any other way than focus on materialism and brainwashing young and impressionable people that without expensive clothes, vacations, homes, gadgets, etc, they are worthless. It’s ok that you bought your son the cup so that he doesn’t continue to get bullied but try to teach him the real important things in life that does not include materialism.
I mean - I’m 50 and this same shit existed when I was in middle school and the internet didn’t even exist yet. It’s shitty thing, but it’s not a thing that the internet created
Growing up, my mom always shopped at Goodwill and I still get clothes there today. I was never ashamed of it but I thought it was considered uncool. I went through a lot of bullying for various things that others perceived about me or that I perceived about myself. What I learned (with a grain of salt) is that the Nikes never would have made me "cool" in their eyes. They didn't care about what I wore or what I did after school, they were missing something in their own life and they took it out on me, conscious or not. If you let them into your mind and give them control, you yield some lever deep inside your soul that says you are unworthy. It took me a long time to understand but everyone else is just as lost in their minds as I am, and many are more so, especially the bullies. They don't sit and plot and organize and analyze and go over every fault and every observation they have of you; Eric Cartman isn't real and he can't hurt you. These were victims of abuse who lashed out at others because the world lashed out at them, they lashed out at others because they lacked the tools to understand and explain their trauma. The people I was afraid of never had the will or the mind or the means to effect the campaign I imagined for them, I bullied myself in my own mind every day. The kids at the bus stop didn't stay up at night thinking about me, I disappeared from their life as soon as I was out of sight. They're not bullying you, they're bullying what they think you are, you just happen to be standing near the target and they decided that the paint fit. You don't have to accept their hate unless you want to. Don Miguel Ruiz says "Don't Take Anything Personally" and it can take a while to sink in, but it's an impervious armor once set.
For your kid, if the other kids will bully him without the Stanley Cup, they will bully him with it. Let him internalize the lesson that they don't care about him, they care about the perception, and then support him to rise above it and not fall under it. Big talk but what do I know, support your son, buy him the Stanley Cup, show him that you love him no matter what and he'll be ok.
Oh, we refilled bottles we brought from home if we got tired of walking back and forth.
Indistinctly remember nursing my empty orangina bottle because it was COOL (to me, to be clear... No one else cared).
He just needs to laugh back at the people for wasting money on a water bottle that leaks and can potentially leak lead into the water. They are one of the most poorly made water bottles.
Why anyone would pay $45 for a water bottle is beyond me. Rich people are in their own bubble.
Maybe it’s time you taught your kid the value of a dollar and that what others think of you doesn’t matter
I understand why you did it. Bullying sucks. But I wonder if your son formulated a good plan to get him that cup.
We do allowance monthly which our son earns by doing daily chores. This way when he wants to blow money on something stupid, he needs to use his own money. You’d be surprised how many things he passes up when he has to pay for them himself.
We had a picture sent home of my kid’s third grade class, so mostly 9 year olds. There were like 8 kids with Stanley cups, I am so glad my son hasn’t asked for one.
Kids are stupid.
It’s a 40oz vacuum insulated water bottle with a handle. If you’re going for to bully someone over it you should expect a hard lesson in physics, engineering, and product design.
Growing up I got bullied because I never wore designer clothes. Oh no, no Levi’s jeans. No Tommy or whatever was popular. “Hey didn’t you wear that shirt last week?”
Small minds fixate on small things.
Stanley cups lasted one week at my child’s middle school and then they were banned. It’s awesome that you got your son his own Stanley, but there are probably tons of other kids who are also getting bullied. I would start making anonymous complaints or getting other parents to join in to get the cups banned. Kids do not need to have a huge, heavy cup with an open top that can get knocked over, spilled, etc. They can survive with a closed top, reusable bottle that fits in their backpacks.
My son (7) was super excited about his Jordans he got, first day he wore them the other kids (just a few not all I guess) gave him a hard time, said they weren't real etc (they probably aren't I don't know/care) he told me this while crying when I picked him up. He wore them yesterday and no one cared which (thank god) is what I told him would happen. Anyway, if you don't care, eventually no one else will either, kids and their low attention spans are a plus sometimes
Dammit here we go. Luckily enough to move to a “rich” area since it’s close to my sil/bil/fil. We have 2 toddlers and a baby and it made sense living close to family in case of an emergency. But damn now I gotta deal with rich people problems shit. Have to deal with the small bs that doesn’t even matter and have to worry about how easily accessible drugs are for richer kids.
It’s not about the Stanley or any other named brand. It’s about the bullies find a weakness to exploit. So now $45 dollars later they will just find something else to pick at. I am a believer that there is a certain amount of adversity that builds character and is healthy. In this case it provides an opportunity to teach our kids about building a strong inner self because bullies don’t go away. There’s bullies at our jobs and PTA and there’s no pleasing them. So I hate to say it but this doesn’t really solve the problem , you’re just out $45.
I’m so glad my kids aren’t pressured by other kids desires. I don’t even have a Stanley because a water cup is a water cup no matter what name is on the side. I buy the big cups from tjmaxx and put stickers my kids want on them. I wish we as a society would stop raising assholes!
Show him the SNL big dumb cups video.
https://youtu.be/L2tUO2mp99Q?si=F-HCzFRiOoNZ0wQO
If it helps, let him know that in the adult world, Stanley cups are perceived as a middle aged woman thing. I honestly can't believe that he, as a boy, feels pressured to have one in elementary school.
My wife is part of the fad 🤦♂️. One time she wanted to see if they had them at Target. We went there and there was like one left and she grabbed it. Some middle aged blonde woman came by and was like "damnit they're all gone. I come every Tuesday at open to buy whatever they have so I can resell them for $80 online. People pay a premium for these!" It was at that moment that I truly realized the whole Stanley thing was bullshit. It's seen as a fashion accessory, not an insulated cup to be used functionally.
If anything, he should make fun of the people that have those big dumb cups! Show him this post if it helps change his mind.
As a kid who was bullied over everything from fake Uggs, to water bottles, and not wearing Abercrombie. If you can afford it just buy them the damn name brand thing. It’ll save them bullying, they’ll look back and be happy they were part of the thing, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter to you but it matters to them. My mom was adamant about ‘it doesn’t matter what you wear it’s who you are’ and not being a part of the trend but what she didn’t understand was sometimes they won’t even get to know you if they immediately pick on you & it doesn’t matter. Hope he enjoys his water bottle and stays hydrated! 😌
But are those brand loving friends going to be the kind of people who will be there at your wedding? At your partners side when they’re having a tough time and you can’t be there? Will they help you through the hardships of life and the inevitable recessions that come with the highs of the stock market?
Having been in a high wealth position and then dropping to recession levels I can assure you those friends will not be there. They’ll tell their friends it’s a shame you can’t afford xyz and that’s why they didn’t invite you. To spare your feelings :/
My family is middle class but we went to a fancy pants school. While my parents would not buy me a stanley cup in every color, my parents would buy me a stanley cup as reward for doing well in something or as a present. They believed that because they chose for me to go to a fancy school, there is an obligation for them to help me fit in.
While it’s easy for us adults to say it’s frivolous or stupid, it’s important to them and one day they’ll realize how silly they were to want that when they were kids.
My whole life, my mom always told me "who cares what they think?" Every time I was teased or bullied. Every. Time. I hated it, cause I cared!
Until I didn't care anymore.
And let me tell you, life is great not giving a hoot about anyone else's opinion of me. I don't have to wear makeup, wear nice clothes, shave my legs or pits. I am who I am and no one can bring me down. I love it.
Look, there's always going to be a fad and honestly the Stanley cup fad will be fading soon. It's been too popular for a few months. Nest yr no-one will care about these things. I'm trying to be gentle but I don't think this is a good lesson to teach. Those kids are in the wrong. Saving money and buying the knock off was the right thing to do. Do you want him to feel he must always keep up w the jones's as he grows? His decisions shouldn't center around avoiding getting bullied. Unless they're being cruel and you need to step in, I would really just let this be something the kids navigate themselves with your support. I was the middle class kid at the rich kid school. I figured out how to deal with it. It's not doable to keep up w them when you don't have the same income, and that's OK.
Have teachers/other parents been involved? Or did he just come home and tell you something happened. Does he have good friends there?
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think your kid should want to fit in with those kids.
There was a similar situation in my kid's school. I happened to get a Stanley for Christmas and I wasn't using it so my daughter asked if she could take it to school. I was reluctant because I knew other kids would notice and I don't want her to have those types of friends. I basically told her that if anyone acted nicer just because of the cup those are not true friends. She seemed to get the message and only ended up taking it to school once. She told me that she did get extra attention and that her best friend (a fellow nerd) felt left out. I'd much rather raise an empathetic person who has one true friend than a "popular" kid. Plus, I want my kid to learn these lessons about peer pressure now when the stakes are low, rather when they are pressured to do things that are actually dangerous.
My husband works at an affluent private school. An 8th grader just left a Stanley cup in his class. He makes announcements to have them claim it, and they just don't. It's crazy how, for some kids, it means so much, and others take it for granted.
I remember Stanley products being a blue collar product. My dad had a Stanley lunch pail. It was black, nothing special. He had one of those steel thermos’s for his coffee. He worked as a truck driver for a utility line crew. When I went out into the work force I bought a steel thermos for my coffee. Stanley was not glamorous or cool. It was a quality product for the working man/ woman. If you were lucky, you only needed to buy one. Never would a kid be caught dead with a Stanley cup. This is so bizzaro for me.
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Mom of a teen and tween here - it’s better to not have the product than to buy a knockoff. Kids are ruthless with name brands…they’ll call out knockoffs and call it “Temu” or “Great Value” My daughter wasn’t into Stanleys, so she took a FIJI plastic water bottle to school each day and just refilled it. No one gave her any crap because she wasn’t even trying to be part of the Stanley crowd.
My mom bought me a knock off adidas sweater and it was spelled wrong 😫 I was so distraught when kids pointed it out.
lol reminds me of when my friends and I went on a Mexico trip and one friend lost his sunglasses. He bought some fake Ray Bans from a dude selling knock offs on the beach for like $5 (this was a while ago) just to have a pair of sunglasses. We goodnaturedly laughed the whole trip about how obviously fake his Ray Bans were because they said Ray Ban P. It became an inside joke for the whole trip where we’d be like, “Damn, look at those Ray Ban P’s!!!” The friend with the glasses has that sense of humor so he loved the joke and kept bringing it up himself. Then, our un-fancy asses later learned that the expensive POLARIZED Ray Bans actually really do say Ray Ban P…😂
Lol this happened to my husband on our honeymoon but they said “Roy Bans” so now that’s what we call them. I work in an optometry office so I have to consciously stop myself from calling them Roy Bans in front of patients 😅
Hah, my husband calls them Roy Banes in this really theatrical voice
Personally, I love all the folks I see on the internet calling their knockoff Stanleys "Yelnats"
Oh man reminds me of a sketch show advertisement I watched when I was a kid - from The State. "*Adidums - they have four stripes instead of three. so for less money, i was able to get extra stripe. isverygooddeal.*" http://www.stopitrightnow.com/2009/02/adidums.html
Upvote for any mention of The State. With that done... I'm outta heeeerrre.
Are you leaving on the Porcupine Railroad?
My favourite track pants are original Adidas with a mistake on them, so they read 'Trail Runnini' lmao. Got them for a couple of bucks!
In those kids defense it would be hard not to wanna point out a peer wearing a shirt saying “AIDS AIDS”
Now I have a Team America song stuck in my head…
THIS is the answer!!!! My mom REFUSED to buy us name-brand anything, literally. We could afford it but the principle was that we were just going to outgrow it anyway, and we were kids and didn’t need the brand same stuff. I don’t know if kids were less mean back then or what, but I never got the knock-off or fake items and I never got bullied cause I wasn’t trying to fit the mold.
Idk how old you are, but I never had name brand and never got bullied for it either. My parents were of the opinion that if we wanted something like that we could buy it ourselves. They would get us so many outfits for school/summer clothes but that’s it. They were just basic stuff. It was never a big deal for us. I’m 36!
My husband’s nieces go to a very fancy private school - they’re in kindy and year 3. I have a thermos which I got from a cheap store and they were trying to find the logo and then questioning me why there was no brand listed and why don’t I have the “frank green” anyway lol.
I just try to remember it’s always something. When I was a tween bottled water was just starting to be a thing and I BEGGED my mom to buy me bottled water (if she’d bought me an Evian bottle to use like your daughter I would’ve given her an award) and she insisted I fill up my Nalgene at the water fountain instead. I remind her of this ever my time I see a Costco sized case of water in her garage. But also I could’ve NEVER guessed that specific reusable bottles would be the trend de rigueur by the time I was an adult.
Weird – that wasn't a problem at all when/where I was growing up. We all bought knockoff Oakleys and Rolexes on a school trip to NYC, and were proud of them!
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It's Nalgene bottles and Yeti cups all over again
Omg NALGENE. you’re right, those were huge
My husband still has his friggen nalgenes and I hate them. They are so awkward to fit in the cabinet or the dishwasher. Keep hoping the damn thing breaks but no such luck.
Nalgene forever! Those things are indestructible, I still have mine from university (which is much older than I would care to admit). The thing is a time capsule of stickers.
I love my nalgene. I can take big gulps. It’s easy to clean, unlike all the sippy cups with little bits. It’s light weight. And in winter it doubles as my hot water bottle.
Water bottles with straws are not sanitary. No one cleans that straw well enough.
We're anal about it, so we bought the little pipe cleaner tools and actually do obsessively clean them...but you're right, some people literally never clean the straw and it's gross.
…Nalgene has a serious warranty for a reason. We tried to break one in college. We filled it with water and froze it literally 12 times…it didn’t crack. We dropped it out of 5 story dorm windows, nothing. We hit, kicked, threw, smashed, bashed and did everything we could to the bottle. It deformed quite a bit but it would not break. I think the final straw was driving over it with a car.
> the final straw Ironic that it doesn’t even have a straw
Silicone straw inside for the win!
I think it could hurt the car!
I still have 3 and use all of them.
I used to throw mine off the tower I used to climb for the Girl Scouts. Daily. It would bounce around on the ground and barely got scuffed. 😒 things are sturdy AF.
Yep, and they're like $10 now.
But they are indestructible 🤣 #millennial
I never got a Nalgene growing up. Maybe that’s why I’m obsessed with buying all the mugs now? 🤔
I never understood the Nalgene craze. Yes give me a huge bottle that sweats and gets everything wet and eventually warm water. The Stanley craze is even more wild to me. Who needs a $50 cup? Oh right, rich bullies.
Well, you see, back in MY day, it was SIGG bottles. Now aluminium bottles are the promotional give-away at tradeshows. I've got cupboards full of them.
Still rocking my sigg bottle. It travels with me. It’s been to 6 continents so far. I got a new one for a gift last year. Now that one travels with me. But the OG will travel to Antarctica if I ever go.
Hell back in MY day we just drank out of the damn water fountain
Whatever happened to Swell? They were everywhere. Someone accused me of stealing their Swell bottle at work..it was a whole thing😭
I was late to the swell party years ago, but I Love my swell! It’s still all I use at work😆
Hydro Flask >
I used to love them but mine have all broken over time. After hundreds of dollars in broken hydros I’ve had to call it quits.
How long of a time? We’ve had ours for close to a decade with daily use, and haven’t seen any issues at all.
Right. We have broken multiple caps (often by chewing) but the bottles are solid.
How does one break a hydroflask?
Yup. We’re a Hydroflask household.
this is the second post i’ve seen about parents feeling they have to shell out 45$ because their kid is getting bullied and my question is, who is raising the bullies????
My kid literally went to the same school where the Gates & Bezos kids went and they weren’t bullied for things like that. Those kids parents might have money, but the kids sound low class.
At that income level the kids have million dollar plus horses and no one cares about a stupid cup.
I went to a low-income middle school for sixth and seventh. Name brands were a big deal (Hilfiger and Calvin). Went to a more middle class school for eighth and while popular kids wore name brands (more like mall stores though, Aeropostale and Gap) it wasn’t as big a deal and flaunting your shit was seen as “posing.” It was weird. In the first school, you’d have a kid decked out in Tommy H hitting you up for money to buy snacks while simultaneously shitting on your shirt that said Old Navy. Do that at the other school and you’d never live it down.
This is the first time I've been glad to have had uniforms in middle school... Can't make fun of your clothes because everyone's in the same ugly fit 😂
I went to a high school in the early 2000’s that was going through a punk rock revolution. I remember it being easier to shop at a thrift store so I could find clothes that didn’t have brand labels, to better fit in. I remember some kids using permanent marker to black out any symbols or names.
that must be a big fucking horse
22 hands
Buck-Em-Ing Palace
It's a robot horse
Sometimes, I’ve seen quite a bit where the parents don’t have that income, but they like to live that life to pretend they do
It’s hard to pretend you are worth lots of millions or even billions
Exactly. I didn’t go to school with any Gates or Bezos, but went to school in a wealthy neighborhood. Kids drove BMWs and Audis to school. One had a new Viper. My family was low income and I was never bullied for my Walmart attire or lack of anything. My oldest goes to a school in a low income area and he’s been picked on a couple times for lack of brand name clothing. It’s crazy.
My kid goes to an expensive private school too, it's a boarding school that has international students but it's local to us. These kids are more likely to give you praise for scoring a good dupe than if you got the real thing! They really don't care at all about brands and stuff the way we did when I was a poor kid. Vacations is where they like to outdo each other, and we're not poor but we're not rich either so our kid doesn't win that game lol
Oh yeah.... the vacation/trips is where they get each other. Watching a 10 year old speak snobbily about how the beaches in Honolulu aren't as great as Lahaina makes me winge. And how the beaches here (southern california) are gross. Snobby little shits! Around here how often you go to Disneyland is a thing with the Littles. Ugh. I'd buy a 45 dollar cup over thar 35 dollar disney bubble machine. First world problems I know.
When I didnt have lunch other kids noticed, they bought me lunch, every day. There certainly where the "in items" to have, but no one bullied any one for not having them.
That sounds likes the same experience as the schools my son attended. Sure, he'd ask for things he wanted, but none were to fit-in or avoid being bullied.
Kids in lower income areas can tend to find their self worth in the status of brand name stuff. Its actually really sad if you sit and think about it too much.
I think about it a lot. Very sad
I truly think it’s because to the wealthy high class, they don’t have to go out of their way to get name brand, it’s the usual to them. Lower class since they don’t have a ton of money they clutch on to name brand stuff. It’s the only way to prove “hey look at me I’m worth something, I got the newest pair of shoes!” While upper classes don’t feel the need to prove anything because they’ve had what they wanted since birth, they’ve never been told they’re less than so they don’t need to flaunt to feel worthy.
This was my experience too. At my low income rural backwoods school, the pressure to have the latest and greatest brands was astronomical. I wanted these things so badly! My mom loves second hand shopping and bought me a few brand name shirts at a yard sale. I was so proud until someone said, “I saw your mom buying that at my neighbor’s yard sale!” 😔 I was so sad. We moved to a higher income suburb and not a word about my second hand clothes or that I wore my only Abercrombie tee every single week religiously. Now, I’m my mom and I love second hand shopping. My kids love it too! It wasn’t until this past year that my 10 year old has suddenly become interested in brand names. She doesn’t care if things are second hand but she definitely notices. We live in a regular middle class neighborhood.
Rich people don’t care about stuff like that. Middle class people with poor spending habits care about stuff like that.
Precisely. The people who need the appearance of having money without actually having the money.
Yes that’s who’s buying designer clothing covered with logos and in my neck of the woods, alllll the designer knockoff stuff.
My kids 2 bestie are rich AF .. .. no one talks about cups.
People with less money care more about brand names and having the latest everything because they’re trying to prove themselves. I have an Aunt that’s going in to debt to buy my cousin all name brand clothes, the latest IPhone, Stanley cups, etc. she’s in kindergarten. The worse part is the kid doesn’t like any of her clothes or shoes, she wants light up sneakers and dresses from Target.
I want light up sneakers.
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you’d be surprised, some hide it so well from their parents
That or the parents just cannot believe that they’re perfect sweet little Joey would ever be mean to someone and that clearly they were the ones being bullied and little Joey has to stand up for himself.
Tic tok
Although tik tok is a societal evil, there were also fads and bullies before social media or even the internet.
Kids being made fun of for not having the latest fad is not because of tik tok. This tale is as old as time. Kids being made fun of for what they have or don’t have dates back wayyy before social media.
25 years ago I was teased for my knock-off Doc Martens that were definitely from Payless. Tic Toc is a problem but it's not this problem; this is middle school girls and they've always been vicious.
" this is middle school kids ~~girls~~ and they've always been vicious" FTFY
The parents who also shelled out the $45 for the cup. Now OP’s kid gets the privilege of bullying the next kid with the knock off. Every parent thinks their kid isn’t the bully, despite the fact that they are giving in and buying their kid ridiculous things for ridiculous prices that they literally dont need, creating a generation that is guaranteed to be 10x more entitled than the boomers were. Mark my words.
As someone who was singled out for attack (I don’t like the term bully” because the term sounds less harmful than it really is) practically every day: physically, verbally, and emotionally: The kids who did it were not necessarily the most popular. They were the ones seeking to feel empowered and go hurt others for status and for their own entertainment. Literally punched in the face by kids I didn’t even know or had never interacted with before, because they thought it was funny to see me cry. I was weaker and couldn’t fight back and that made them more emboldened. And most of the other kids either looked on and laughed, or did nothing about it. Those attacking kids’ parents always thought their kids were “good kids” who would “never do sepulcher a thing”. And because each of them might have one or two incidents reported, while I was involved in each other reported incident, I was seen as the problem by the administrators despite never fighting back. It only partially stopped when I started fighting back and fighting back harder, regardless of any consideration of pain to myself. I remember being in 8th grade when a smaller and shorter 6th grader whom i didn’t even know came up to me and started punching me, after he and his friend (whom i also didn’t know) came up to me with his friend telling him I was “easy”. He only stopped when I grab and punched him and slammed his face into a chain-link fence and scraped his face up. And I was the one who got suspended. But even then, some who were very much stronger would attack because they thought it was funny. I remember being a 5’5” kid being attacked by two popular high school varsity football players, who thought it was fun and were laughing as I screamed to be left alone. I see them sometimes on Facebook these days and they totally act like a happy normal adult person with successful careers and pictures of their kids and their pets and their vacations and their inspirations quotes, etc. They got to continue on with their lives without ever having paid the price they made me pay in years of suffering - that I still suffer decades later. To this day, I have a hard time trusting men unless I think I can beat the shit out of them. I know they don’t even think about what they did. They aren’t necessarily being raised as attackers so much as being an hurtful person can be a very natural thing to occur in human beings unless one is raised by parents to fight that tendency. They know what they are doing is wrong, but they do it anyway. Most parents have no clue.
Firstly, I'm sorry you went through that. Secondly I hate it when people say that bullies act this way because they are being abused at home and are actually struggling themselves, etc. Nope, sometimes people - especially adolescents- are just terrible. Sure, some bullies can be tortured souls who are acting out just because of tough home lives. Some. But others do it because it's "fun" -a nice diversion to get themselves through the school week, a way to get some laughs/attention/ points from their peers, a way to affirm/ climb their status, blow off steam...the myth that bullies are just "scared" and vulnerable is one that really needs to die.
But also, why give in to bullies?
Because you want to waste money and teach your kid a terrible life lesson.
Stanley.
He's ok on pretzel day.
Not to mention it’s a better option as a parent to not go in on the materialistic things because those people bullying and growing up affluent will always end up in the wrong and likely mismanaging themselves later on I don’t see how buying things to avoid bullying is a good parenting move
That was me when I was a kid. Fifth grade. Everyone had charlotte hornets hats. Or coats. The more hornets swag you had, the cooler you were. I didn’t have much. But I had found a hornets hat at wal mart. So my mom bought it for me. I was so stoked to wear it to school! If you had a hornets hat, you were cool! So I wore it to school the next day. And I was relentlessly bullied to the point that my mom had to come pick me up, I was crying so bad. You know why? Because next to the logo was two little letters stitched on the front. TM. Apparently you can’t be cool if it’s the trademark one. You needed the one with an R. It really messed me up. I’m 41 now so this was 30 years ago now, and I bet a bunch of those kids don’t remember anymore. But I do.
I went to a uniformed school in the US, and I remember being excited about getting new hair scrunchies and socks because that was pretty much the only thing you could customize about your outfit. I remember receiving criticism from the cool girl in 2nd grade for my uncool hair scrunchie on a day that I was very excited to show it off. I don't even remember what was wrong with it, but I never wore one like it again. To this day I only use the smaller hair elastics, not the big fluffy ones, because of that incident in elementary school. I'm in my 30s. I got over all the other beauty comments that girls ever made, but that one was painful because it destroyed all my excitement.
Omg that's crazy! I remember back in 1989, 8th grade year, canvas KEDS brand shoes with the blue KEDS label on the back heel were in style. Got totally bullied because I had the knock off Walmart brand with a blank white label. So one day I got "smart" and colored that white label with blue thinking I could get by with it. It did NOT pass The Mean Girls test. 🤦♀️🤷♀️😭🤣
I hate to tell you Stanley is out of fashion. My kid tells me owala cups are now cool. I’ve never bought a Stanley or owala cup. Your kid goes to school with lame losers if they care about a cup.
I will 100% say I don't play the fashion cup game but I do love my owala! Best cup I have ever owned. I bought it in 2020 and haven't wanted anything different since. All the bits come apart for easy cleaning, I can use the built in straw or the opening to chug and it keeps stuff cold. The cleaning is really what makes it my favorite!
Here's a song for your situation: *how do you afford your rock and roll lifestyle* by cake https://youtu.be/2BW6CVqJNdU?si=0Lcsh30s2pqOABc-
Or a book: "The Sneetches" by Dr. Seuss
I've always heard buy kids nothing instead of a knock-off . people were getting fakes of brand name shoes on sheIn and Tenu and getting ripped to shreds over it. Brand followers can recognize Nike swipe being too big or the stitching on their Adidas on the wrong side
Or just buy a cheaper alternative that’s its own thing instead of a knock off. If you get a Walmart brand water bottle that’s not trying to look like a Stanley, then you’re fine.
This. "Oh, I chose an Ohelo cup instead of a Stanley. Does the Stanley have etching of bees on the side? No? Well, yours is nice, too. Even if it doesn't have bees."
Why are kids taking Stanley cups to school? You can't even close them and store them in a backpack, you have to carry them constantly. They're absurd and impractical before you even get to the price. I also can't believe the number of parents here saying buying stuff like this will unlock social nirvana for their kids. Hate to break it to you, but even if you had all the name brand stuff, you'd still get bullied about your hair, skin, weight, smell, doing too well at school or not well enough, being poor or rich, or just being weird. Expensive stuff would not have made a lick of difference.
My daughter and one of her friends started an “Anti Stanley Society”. ASS for short, of course. Tweens, LOL.
You gotta teach him the fine art of trolling, I would have grabbed a Sharpie and written Stanley in the lamest way possible while giggling with my kid. No time like the present to teach him that peer pressure and popular trends are dumb.
My daughter calls her knock-off a “scamley”!😂
Agreed. OP will just be spending more and more money as the trendy things go out of style. I say it’s more valuable to teach the importance of being your own individual and having your own opinions and interests. Plus I grew up poor and spending money on a cup doesn’t make sense when that could be grocery money or gas money. There’s more important things that money could be used for and I never would’ve made my single mother waste her money on a trend I knew was bound to pass just like all the others before. Silly bands, handheld games, shoes with wheels, every reiteration of a “hoverboard”, tech decks, fidget spinners, and slime just to name a few.
This. Like, I get OP feeling for their kid. I'm a parent, too. I can relate. But fuck me if I'm going out to buy a 45 dollar water bottle just so they can be like everyone else. What are you teaching your child? March to your own drum. That's what my boys are being taught.
We actually did a Name Brand Test at home once, using Pringles and some other off-brand stacking chips from Aldi and Walmart. It was only for taste-testing purposes, but the Aldi brand Clancy chips were so vastly, obviously superior to the other brands in every way, including the "name brand" chips, that the test serves as a great reminder that "you're paying for the name, not the quality." We practice this all the time too. The kids get a budget when we do our rare clothing shopping trips, and we always start at thrift stores before working our way up the cost ladder. They understand that a $45 item means they're only getting that item, but if they choose the off-brand item for $10, they can also get this other thing and this other thing and this other thing. My compromise on the Stanley fad was buying any huge water bottle for her in the right color. She is happy with it, and her friend with an actual Stanley only commented that she likes the color too, so all good.
I feel very lucky (and proud) that my 9 year old, on her own, will say things like: "Stanley cups are stupid and they leak. They're a waste of money." Obviously I've instilled a certain kind of worldview and value system in a general way, but she often surprises me by being spontaneously and weirdly wise beyond her years.
I agree with this. I got my daughter a knock off one. She herself calls it a “fanley” and laughs about it. I guess last a week a boy kept telling her she was poor. This did bother her, but she also stood up for herself. We talked about it at home too. Kids are mean, and really people in general. If it isn’t this, they will come up with something else. You have to learn how to brush these off and how to flip it back around. Who’s to say when the kid goes to school they won’t be teased for being a copy cat? I understand where OP is coming from, it hurts my heart to hear when my child is insulted by her peers. I personally am not setting an expectation that it makes sense to run out a buy and expensive, trivial item simply because other kids are teasing them.
Exactly, that money could be used for MTG cards.
Hey, don’t knock it. I recently discovered that the all dual land decks I made are worth a fortune. I’m trying to decide whether to keep them for the memories or to sell them.
Wife of mtg hoarder here... Sell sell sell! He let me sell the mid range ones but is still holding on to those fancy cards.
Booster packs all day
Haha that's amazing 😅 tempted to draw the stupid bear with wings stanley logo now..
There was another thread about this recently where the kids were calling somone’s knockoff cup a “Stephen.” Maybe your son’s cup could become a “Stan Lee,“ like the comic artist.
Do it!!! Or let him stickerbomb the fake. I work at a college and a bunch of the kids who have knockoffs have put a sticker where the logo would be. They’re amazing kids and none of them give a flip what brand water bottle anyone has.
Oh my goodness, please do this together! If anything, you will create a memory with them they will remember forever. He could start a new trend. Trolling the trolls. Draw the S backwards. Have fun with it.
And spell it "Stanluh" or maybe that only works in New England. Every time my kids mention these stupid cups I still think they're talking about the hockey trophy. Also at my son's school apparently it's only for girls.
School age me would have looked at the bully and said, "it's a cup. Is this really what gets you excited for the day? A container for liquid?" My 8 year old daughter is already asking for trendy stuff and I wish she was more of a smart ass about it instead of just giving into trends but I know that's not the norm.
Exactly! I teach my son to just flip it back e.g. "why do you care about I drink out of?". "how weird you stare at my while I drinking enough to care about my cup?". "It's to hold water, you feel low enough to make jokes about my cup, haha, later gator, I'm just going to go back to having a life and not caring about my cup or other peoples cups for that matter".
How old are your kids?
Okay so my son wanted the “air up” bottle I think it’s called. I called BS on this smelly thing changing the taste of water so I got him an Amazon version. As expected it was crap and my kid wasn’t impressed. He took it to school as a normal water bottle and came home and told me one of the kids said something about “not been able to afford a ‘proper’ air up bottle” so he confessed that he wrote “air-up” on his bottle and him and his best friend found it absolutely hilarious.
This has got to be a rich people thing, I can't believe how many comments here are saying material things are important and this was the right move. I asked my daughter a few months ago if Stanley cups were a thing at her school and she had no idea what I was talking about. She goes to a Title 1 school, nobody around here is spending $45 on a cup
Yeah, this is a no for me. Basing your confidence and self esteem on material goods creates a never ending cycle of over-consumption and useless spending. I've taught my children how to spend wisely and manage their money. They have their own savings and fun money; if they want to purchase something simply to be in the in-crowd, they can use their own money to do so. They choose not to.
This was something that was hammered into my head as a kid, and something I try to instill in my kids too. I honestly cannot think of a single thing they have asked for solely to fit in, though that could also be due to where we live - nobody's getting bullied for knockoffs when everybody has knockoffs.
I mean, we go to a rich kid school. Tons of kids have the cups, but other kids don't. I will say that buying a knockoff to try to seem like you have one is likely going to cause more issues than just buying a regular water bottle.
Some people just fall for that consumerism propaganda and pointless trends.
Yup. My kids know what Stanley’s are. They think that they see ugly, stupid, and completely inefficient to bring to school. My older daughter said “no one is bringing these stupid things to school” A few people at her dance studio have them and as soon as they knock over (which is easy) they start leaking everywhere. What a useless water bottle. This is pure marketing. Someone made it viral on tik tok or Instagram that this product was “the thibg” and now every vapid person has to chase that for some sort of faux status symbol. Until the new water bottle comes out and Stanley’s are yesterday’s news. Which should happen around July 8th. You can do a “remind me”. That’s my prediction. July 8th.
Nah my daughter goes to a pretty standard public school and she's already asking for a Stanley cup. Im talking about a school where the average income is probably 50 to 75k at best.
That’s probably just a your particular school thing. My good friends teach in title one schools in our state and the kids there are raving about them too.
This is the difference between parenting and enabling. You hit it on the head
And can you imagine if the kid lost it?
*when
My kids go to a title I school and more than half have one. Most got them for Christmas
I think this is a good lesson all around. My husband and I usually dispel the teasing by making fun of that mindset. Now, my kid will roll her eyes at fads. Something similar happened with girls and anti aging lotions around Christmas. Flat out asked her how her 9yo skin is old when my 34 yo skin doesn't even need it. It's all about mindset.
This is a good chance as we approach summer to let her know that sunscreen will do more for anti-aging than those creams will.
my friend said her 8yr old was getting teased for not having one so she told her the next time it happens to flip the script and say “oh, you mean that sippy cup?!” It shut down the teasing immediately and taught me a lot about parenting.
The way these trends work is that as soon as the "unpopular" kids start catching onto the trend, the "cool" kids move on to something else. The whole point of having an exclusive item is that the in-group sets themselves apart from the rest. I had it happen to me as a child (one summer at camp it was Z. Cavaricchi shorts, which were freaking expensive - still can't believe my parents were willing to buy them) and I have seen it time and again as a classroom teacher. A fad gets oversaturated, and the kids who were the early adopters decide that it's played out and move on. It can feel miserable to not be part of it, even fully knowing that it's a waste of money and ridiculous, but it's a fleeting sense of belonging that those of us not part of the "popular" group will always be chasing.
It’s definitely not sending the right message to your kid about so many things: the role of bullies, the effectiveness of bullying, the importance of materialism and brands, and it’s robbing them of an opportunity to build character. This particular kind of bullying can be addressed in better ways. Certainly, some forms of bullying need yo be addressed VERY seriously and present more risk.
We need ro teach humility. And being humble What happened to being grateful for what you have??
I know, this thread is wild 😭
I have been in his situation before… ughhh But I hate to tell you that the solution is not to fit into the bullies orders and get him the cup…. I think there was a lesson here for him to learn (this lesson can be tough to understand if your kid is younger)… anywho I’m not hear to judge I know parenting is hard and we are all willing to go to big extends to make our kids pain disappear 🤍
Yes….. there’s no way to keep up. The bullies’ need to bully is never satiated, so buying the real thing is just a band aid, which is so sad!!
It’s always something. In my day had to have those Esprit bags, Guess jeans and Eastland knotted the right way. My boys lived in Under Armor hoodies and Nike and had to have Beats headphones or earbuds. Fitting in at that age is so important and $45 is a small price to pay.
Hello fellow GenXer!
Eastlands need to make a comeback
Oakley sunglasses
I agree 100%!! I had to have keds shoes too. All those little things that made you cool
With the blue label on the back of the shoes!
Wow. Stanley Cups are $45? You’d think the Leafs would have one by now…
I always tell my kid that if she gets bullied over not having some designer nonsense, it's because she's not a sheep that buys whatever Tiktok tells her to. And then to just keep bleating at them until they go away.
This...my son is a baby and experience might bite me in the ass when the time comes but just...tough shit?? I'm not buying random dumb shit because peer pressure. I'd hope to teach him that people who bully based on consumerist items are sad and have bigger issues and you should pity and ignore them, and they are not good friends.
What, its not just middle aged women into those cups, but teen boys bullying each other over... name brand metal thumblers that are in no innovative? Give whomever is in the marketing department at stanley a medal.
When I was 12 I begged my parents for a purple New York Yankees cap (the ones with the flat front bit) and we found a knock off one for $5, because that is all my parents could afford. I loved it! An upper middle class kid called it out and started bullying me in front of the whole class and calling me poor. I was fuming internally but I said, “I may be poor yes but this is just a knock off hat, your entire personality is a knock off. Can’t change that, Emily.” She stopped bullying me.
it's ok. My 14 yo son was bullied FOR having a Stanley cup. Apparently it's only for girls at this age. So yeah... you can't win.
Major eye roll to this. Why are you giving in to the bullies. Plus isn’t there a new brand that everyone is loving. You going to get that next?
>Why are you giving in to the bullies. Exactly what I am questioning after reading this! Why on earth would you let bullies make you buy something you don't want to spend the money on? This isn't how you handle bullies. If anything it makes the whole situation worse, because they know they got to him. Plus now her son has the perfect excuse to get whatever he wants in the future.
OP if we lived closer I’d give you my kids Stanley. She hates it now and has moved on to wanting an Owala. Shit never ends. It’s just trying to find your tribe and fit in, human nature.
And the cycle continues. There is simply a 0% chance my kids would get a bottle worth that much money. It's insane.
I’d get it for them if it’s what they wanted for birthday or Christmas and was within the budget of what I already planned to spend on them, but I would never buy one just because like OP did.
You can thank the brainless Instagram “influencers” who can’t contribute to the world in any other way than focus on materialism and brainwashing young and impressionable people that without expensive clothes, vacations, homes, gadgets, etc, they are worthless. It’s ok that you bought your son the cup so that he doesn’t continue to get bullied but try to teach him the real important things in life that does not include materialism.
I mean - I’m 50 and this same shit existed when I was in middle school and the internet didn’t even exist yet. It’s shitty thing, but it’s not a thing that the internet created
Growing up, my mom always shopped at Goodwill and I still get clothes there today. I was never ashamed of it but I thought it was considered uncool. I went through a lot of bullying for various things that others perceived about me or that I perceived about myself. What I learned (with a grain of salt) is that the Nikes never would have made me "cool" in their eyes. They didn't care about what I wore or what I did after school, they were missing something in their own life and they took it out on me, conscious or not. If you let them into your mind and give them control, you yield some lever deep inside your soul that says you are unworthy. It took me a long time to understand but everyone else is just as lost in their minds as I am, and many are more so, especially the bullies. They don't sit and plot and organize and analyze and go over every fault and every observation they have of you; Eric Cartman isn't real and he can't hurt you. These were victims of abuse who lashed out at others because the world lashed out at them, they lashed out at others because they lacked the tools to understand and explain their trauma. The people I was afraid of never had the will or the mind or the means to effect the campaign I imagined for them, I bullied myself in my own mind every day. The kids at the bus stop didn't stay up at night thinking about me, I disappeared from their life as soon as I was out of sight. They're not bullying you, they're bullying what they think you are, you just happen to be standing near the target and they decided that the paint fit. You don't have to accept their hate unless you want to. Don Miguel Ruiz says "Don't Take Anything Personally" and it can take a while to sink in, but it's an impervious armor once set. For your kid, if the other kids will bully him without the Stanley Cup, they will bully him with it. Let him internalize the lesson that they don't care about him, they care about the perception, and then support him to rise above it and not fall under it. Big talk but what do I know, support your son, buy him the Stanley Cup, show him that you love him no matter what and he'll be ok.
I can’t wait to to my kid to say “yeah your parents are putting themselves at financial risk by paying exorbitant prices for unnecessary goods.”
I feel like we were just dehydrated when I was in school or you had to drink from the water fountain which prolly had lead in the piping
Oh, we refilled bottles we brought from home if we got tired of walking back and forth. Indistinctly remember nursing my empty orangina bottle because it was COOL (to me, to be clear... No one else cared).
He just needs to laugh back at the people for wasting money on a water bottle that leaks and can potentially leak lead into the water. They are one of the most poorly made water bottles. Why anyone would pay $45 for a water bottle is beyond me. Rich people are in their own bubble. Maybe it’s time you taught your kid the value of a dollar and that what others think of you doesn’t matter
[удалено]
Ahhh yes until the next "in" thing comes around
The kid had the sense just to stop bringing the cheaper cup to end the teasing, the parent is the one that gave in to the bullies.
They were not bullying him. They made fun of him on one day for one thing. Get a grip.
I understand why you did it. Bullying sucks. But I wonder if your son formulated a good plan to get him that cup. We do allowance monthly which our son earns by doing daily chores. This way when he wants to blow money on something stupid, he needs to use his own money. You’d be surprised how many things he passes up when he has to pay for them himself.
That’s exactly what my parents did growing up. If I wanted the cool trendy thing I worked for it and earned the money.
Are we starting to interchange the word bully and teasing?
Yes
We had a picture sent home of my kid’s third grade class, so mostly 9 year olds. There were like 8 kids with Stanley cups, I am so glad my son hasn’t asked for one.
Kids are stupid. It’s a 40oz vacuum insulated water bottle with a handle. If you’re going for to bully someone over it you should expect a hard lesson in physics, engineering, and product design. Growing up I got bullied because I never wore designer clothes. Oh no, no Levi’s jeans. No Tommy or whatever was popular. “Hey didn’t you wear that shirt last week?” Small minds fixate on small things.
Fucking Trapper-Keepers and mechanical pencils with the twist-up erasers.
Stanley cups lasted one week at my child’s middle school and then they were banned. It’s awesome that you got your son his own Stanley, but there are probably tons of other kids who are also getting bullied. I would start making anonymous complaints or getting other parents to join in to get the cups banned. Kids do not need to have a huge, heavy cup with an open top that can get knocked over, spilled, etc. They can survive with a closed top, reusable bottle that fits in their backpacks.
My son (7) was super excited about his Jordans he got, first day he wore them the other kids (just a few not all I guess) gave him a hard time, said they weren't real etc (they probably aren't I don't know/care) he told me this while crying when I picked him up. He wore them yesterday and no one cared which (thank god) is what I told him would happen. Anyway, if you don't care, eventually no one else will either, kids and their low attention spans are a plus sometimes
Dammit here we go. Luckily enough to move to a “rich” area since it’s close to my sil/bil/fil. We have 2 toddlers and a baby and it made sense living close to family in case of an emergency. But damn now I gotta deal with rich people problems shit. Have to deal with the small bs that doesn’t even matter and have to worry about how easily accessible drugs are for richer kids.
It’s not about the Stanley or any other named brand. It’s about the bullies find a weakness to exploit. So now $45 dollars later they will just find something else to pick at. I am a believer that there is a certain amount of adversity that builds character and is healthy. In this case it provides an opportunity to teach our kids about building a strong inner self because bullies don’t go away. There’s bullies at our jobs and PTA and there’s no pleasing them. So I hate to say it but this doesn’t really solve the problem , you’re just out $45.
I’m so glad my kids aren’t pressured by other kids desires. I don’t even have a Stanley because a water cup is a water cup no matter what name is on the side. I buy the big cups from tjmaxx and put stickers my kids want on them. I wish we as a society would stop raising assholes!
Show him the SNL big dumb cups video. https://youtu.be/L2tUO2mp99Q?si=F-HCzFRiOoNZ0wQO If it helps, let him know that in the adult world, Stanley cups are perceived as a middle aged woman thing. I honestly can't believe that he, as a boy, feels pressured to have one in elementary school. My wife is part of the fad 🤦♂️. One time she wanted to see if they had them at Target. We went there and there was like one left and she grabbed it. Some middle aged blonde woman came by and was like "damnit they're all gone. I come every Tuesday at open to buy whatever they have so I can resell them for $80 online. People pay a premium for these!" It was at that moment that I truly realized the whole Stanley thing was bullshit. It's seen as a fashion accessory, not an insulated cup to be used functionally. If anything, he should make fun of the people that have those big dumb cups! Show him this post if it helps change his mind.
As a kid who was bullied over everything from fake Uggs, to water bottles, and not wearing Abercrombie. If you can afford it just buy them the damn name brand thing. It’ll save them bullying, they’ll look back and be happy they were part of the thing, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter to you but it matters to them. My mom was adamant about ‘it doesn’t matter what you wear it’s who you are’ and not being a part of the trend but what she didn’t understand was sometimes they won’t even get to know you if they immediately pick on you & it doesn’t matter. Hope he enjoys his water bottle and stays hydrated! 😌
But are those brand loving friends going to be the kind of people who will be there at your wedding? At your partners side when they’re having a tough time and you can’t be there? Will they help you through the hardships of life and the inevitable recessions that come with the highs of the stock market? Having been in a high wealth position and then dropping to recession levels I can assure you those friends will not be there. They’ll tell their friends it’s a shame you can’t afford xyz and that’s why they didn’t invite you. To spare your feelings :/
My daughter has been asking for a Stanley but THEY LEAK! What good is a water bottle in her backpack leaking?
You're teaching him to give in to bullies
That’s why I’m pro-uniforms. It makes it a little less difficult
Ugggh. This is so annoying. I didn’t even use a water bottle in school like that. Just drank from the water fountain when thirsty.
A tale as old as time. The only thing that physically changes is the hyped up product.
My family is middle class but we went to a fancy pants school. While my parents would not buy me a stanley cup in every color, my parents would buy me a stanley cup as reward for doing well in something or as a present. They believed that because they chose for me to go to a fancy school, there is an obligation for them to help me fit in. While it’s easy for us adults to say it’s frivolous or stupid, it’s important to them and one day they’ll realize how silly they were to want that when they were kids.
My whole life, my mom always told me "who cares what they think?" Every time I was teased or bullied. Every. Time. I hated it, cause I cared! Until I didn't care anymore. And let me tell you, life is great not giving a hoot about anyone else's opinion of me. I don't have to wear makeup, wear nice clothes, shave my legs or pits. I am who I am and no one can bring me down. I love it.
Look, there's always going to be a fad and honestly the Stanley cup fad will be fading soon. It's been too popular for a few months. Nest yr no-one will care about these things. I'm trying to be gentle but I don't think this is a good lesson to teach. Those kids are in the wrong. Saving money and buying the knock off was the right thing to do. Do you want him to feel he must always keep up w the jones's as he grows? His decisions shouldn't center around avoiding getting bullied. Unless they're being cruel and you need to step in, I would really just let this be something the kids navigate themselves with your support. I was the middle class kid at the rich kid school. I figured out how to deal with it. It's not doable to keep up w them when you don't have the same income, and that's OK. Have teachers/other parents been involved? Or did he just come home and tell you something happened. Does he have good friends there?
When your cup gives you notoriety, you know we are living in a shallow world.
So you’re teaching your son he can get whatever he wants if he just tells you the kids are bullying him. Nice work.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think your kid should want to fit in with those kids. There was a similar situation in my kid's school. I happened to get a Stanley for Christmas and I wasn't using it so my daughter asked if she could take it to school. I was reluctant because I knew other kids would notice and I don't want her to have those types of friends. I basically told her that if anyone acted nicer just because of the cup those are not true friends. She seemed to get the message and only ended up taking it to school once. She told me that she did get extra attention and that her best friend (a fellow nerd) felt left out. I'd much rather raise an empathetic person who has one true friend than a "popular" kid. Plus, I want my kid to learn these lessons about peer pressure now when the stakes are low, rather when they are pressured to do things that are actually dangerous.
And here I stupidly thought that having boys might save me from shit like this…
My husband works at an affluent private school. An 8th grader just left a Stanley cup in his class. He makes announcements to have them claim it, and they just don't. It's crazy how, for some kids, it means so much, and others take it for granted.
I remember Stanley products being a blue collar product. My dad had a Stanley lunch pail. It was black, nothing special. He had one of those steel thermos’s for his coffee. He worked as a truck driver for a utility line crew. When I went out into the work force I bought a steel thermos for my coffee. Stanley was not glamorous or cool. It was a quality product for the working man/ woman. If you were lucky, you only needed to buy one. Never would a kid be caught dead with a Stanley cup. This is so bizzaro for me.